Why don’t you have some fun and Send your name to Mars on NASA’s next space mission called InSight…but you’ll have to be quick as it closes on the 8th September 2015.Please go to website below to download your special Mars certificate...the launch will be on the 4th March 2016.http://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/​

~ You are invited to be part of this wonderful event for Science Week ~

The Southern Astronomical Society supports ‘Science Week’ with a World Record Stargazing Attempt being organized by The Hon Karen Andrews MP the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry & Science Federal Member for McPherson.

The All Saints Anglican School at Highfield Drive Merrimac is hosing the event and the Stargazing will be held on there large school oval with members from the Southern Astronomical Society kindly providing there large telescopes for everyone to look through.

There will be lots of food available on the night and also a live-streamed link from Mt Stromlo Observatory with astronomers giving talks, including a presentation by noble prize winner Prof. Brian Schmidt.

You can bring your own telescope or a pair of binoculars on the night to participate in the event, or purchase a telescope for only $5.50. But you must be very quick to order the telescopes by the 12th August so they can be delivered on time for the night.

All the Stardust children were very excited to celebrate the safe flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft past this incredible little dwarf planet Pluto. Most of these children were not even born when the spacecraft left Earth in 2006 on its 6 billion kms journey through the solar system.

During our August session at the library they had a lot of fun colouring in the planet along with the happy doggy Pluto…

On the 8th August there was this huge sunspot group called AR2396 that was over 150,000kms in diameter with a dark core that was the size of three Earths. Not only that, the pattern of this large sunspot group looked like a little footprint :-) The white light image was taken with a Meade 80mm refractor telescope fitted with an Orion glass solar filter. I used a Canon 700D camera with a 2x and 3x Barlow lens attached, the exposure time was 1/640th second and ISO 200. There were 25 images stacked in RegiStak6 and then processed in PS CS4. The other two images were taken with a Lunt 80mm H-Alpha solar telescope that shows the solar surface and faint wispy prominences in all their glory. Both images were taken with a Canon 700D camera with a 2x and 3x Barlow lens. I use this camera because it so easy to capture the images with out a computer and it’s very light on the back of the telescope.

On the 14th July, the New Horizon spacecraft successfully flew by Pluto at and incredibly close distance of only 1,250 kilometres and showed us what an amazingly complex world Pluto really is. Those first real images of a reddish coloured planet with a huge icy area in the shape of a heart were just breathtaking…we could even see the likeness of the doggy Pluto in this same region which is now named Tombaugh Regio after Pluto’s discoverer Clyde Tombaugh. It’s just so hard to get your mind around how an object that’s only the size of a grand piano could travel nearly 6 billion kilometres through the solar system and safely reach its target at the precise time and place nine and a half years later to begin imaging…but that’s what NASA does time and time again with its space exploration…its just incredible! Remarkably at the time of closest approach you could watch where the spacecraft was by using NASA’s ‘Eyes on Pluto’ app, that is designed for your computer or your mobile device…this app shows you where New Horizons is right now and you’ll find it at: http://eyes.nasa.gov/ Currently, the spacecraft is now many millions of kilometres away from Pluto but its precious cargo of data is still to be delivered to Earth, so expect many more wonderful new discoveries to come over the next 16 months. How do we get back all this wonderful information back from New Horizons? It’s done by NASA’s Deep Space Network of Radio telescope that are placed strategically around the globe to capture the signal from New Horizons please go to the DST website to find out all about it at: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/ Congratulations to all the New Horizons team for all your dedication in showing us what this mysterious little planet looks like…and what a spectacular surprise its turned out to be :-) Please find below a couple of the stunning images taken during this remarkable flyby, go to the New Horizons website to view more at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ and stay tuned for many more new discoveries to be made over the coming year from all the data collected.

~ Nasa's New Horizons image of Pluto taken 14th July 2015 ~

~ Pluto's stunning moon Charon ~

Congratulations to all the New Horizons team at NASA :-)

~ NASA's New Horizons Will Shed More Light on Pluto Than Ever Before ~